How Not to Steal Photos

Since I've had a few questions from concerned readers, I've decided to post a little note on what I did wrong and how to avoid letting it happen to you.

Here's me posting: Hmmm... I'm writing a post about sleeping. I need a picture of someone sleeping. What about that pic of me a couple years ago? No, wait, that's on the other comp. I'm too lazy. Any pics of my kids sleeping? Other comp, too lazy. Der de der... I'll google it! Let's see, here's a cute baby... oh, wait this is a personal pic, I won't use that, that's creepy. What about this one, this one's cute (clicking on the image URL without viewing the host site). Oh, yeah, this is perfect. Since it's so much faster to hotlink than to download and then upload, I'll just do that.

Next morning: Let's see, here's my email, reading comment: "What's with the naked buns?!" WHAT? What naked buns?! There they are in all their glory with a nice little note for me: Don't Steal Pictures, Dumb***!

My thought process: What kind of a creep replaces innocent baby pictures with soft porn? Ok, that was embarrassing and I certainly hope all my readers didn't have to see that and think I'm a perv. I'll apologize to them, I don't even know how that got there. Maybe it's an automatic thing someone has hooked up. Stupid assumption.

Later that day: Mean comment (thanks for apologizing by the way, Jen), warning comment. Me: What in the world is going on? I better check this site. So I do my search over again and find the site. Oh! It's a personal picture! This was posted by another mother! And now all of her readers think I'm a creepy moron. My stat counter shows more than half of my hits are directed from her pages. Her blog is very freaked out and as she put it, she reacted like a Momma Bear. Her readers are commenting like crazy about how horrible this whole thing is and how creepy and worthless the thief (me) is. Naturally, I feel like a little pile of crap and comment on her posts apologizing profusely for my mistake. Then I locate her email and personally apologize. She had actually already written me (it was sent to my other email) to accept my apology and was very cool about the whole thing. I'd give her some link-love right here if I knew she wanted it from me, but unless I hear differently I'm going to go the safe route and give her anonymity.

So, let's evaluate. What were my mistakes? How do you avoid them?

1) If possible, use your own pictures, even if you have to get your lazy butt off the couch and get them off your desktop.

2) Always check the host site- is this a personal or corporate picture? In any case, make sure that it is ok with the owner.

3) Don't upload image URLs without asking permission or at LEAST giving credit. The owner of the image URL has the control of the image- which can be changed to a naked butt or something else. It also gives them a heads up of the pictures you are using.

4) Don't assume the wrong thing and exacerbate the problem by not realizing and apologizing for your mistake immediately! Get to the bottom of it before posting anything else.

5) DO use images from a free image site, such as istockphoto.com, FreeFoto.com, or stock.xchng

Finally, from the other side of the coin: How to avoid getting your site content googled and used:
If you're using Blogger, go to Settings--> Basic and answer the first two questions "No". (Don't add your blog to the listings and don't allow search engines to find it.) Your blog will still be available to anyone, but unless they know your URL or have a direct link, it will be a lot harder to find your site or any of its content.

And thank you, Robyn, for your kind words. They were truly needed.